BERLIN – Mardela started pulling away from Stephen Decatur in the second quarter of Tuesday night’s game and built a 35-23 lead at the half.

But in the third quarter Mardela buried Decatur with a 12-2 run to open the half and then essentially put the game away with a 56-31 lead heading into the fourth quarter. Mardela won easily 74-43.

“We had a short half time because I wanted to get them out there and moving,” SDHS coach Mark Engle said. “We talked about staying focused, rebounding and getting the ball inside. Our third quarter in the Pocomoke game killed us and our third quarter tonight really killed us too.”

Decatur, playing with a less than 100 percent Tre Foreman, could not generate any offense and lacked intensity on defense allowing Mardela plenty of open looks at the basket, which led to an onslaught of converted three-point shots and plenty of offensive rebounds of misses.

“Mardela does a great job of drawing in the defense, penetrating and kicking it out to the open man. We didn’t get the defensive rotations to stop that,” Engle said.

Midway through the fourth quarter, and down 30 points, Engle pulled his starters and cleared the bench to finish the game.

“Just being smart with the basketball and not making turnovers is where we need to improve,” Engle said. “We have made improvements but still have a ways to go.”